Goldman loses $1.3 billion of Gadhafi's money

WSJ
In early 2008, Libya's sovereign-wealth fund controlled by Col. Moammar Gadhafi gave $1.3 billion to Goldman Sachs Group to sink into a currency bet and other complicated trades. The investments lost 98% of their value, internal Goldman documents show.

Libya was furious at Goldman over the nearly total loss of the $1.3 billion it invested in nine equity trades and one currency transaction, people involved in the matter say. A confrontation in Tripoli between a top fund executive and two Goldman officials left the bankers so rattled that they made a panicked phone call to their bosses, these people say. Goldman arranged for a security guard to protect them before they left Libya the next day, they say.

Discussions inside Goldman about how to salvage the fractured relationship included Lloyd C. Blankfein, the company's chairman and chief executive, David A. Viniar, its finance chief, and Michael Sherwood, Goldman's top executive in Europe, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people involved in the negotiations. All three executives declined to comment.

Goldman offered the fund an opportunity to invest $3.7 billion in the securities firm. Between May and July of 2009, Goldman executives made three proposals that would have given Libya preferred shares or unsecured debt in Goldman, according to documents prepared by Goldman for the fund. Each proposal promised a stream of payments that would eventually offset the losses.

Goldman loses 98% of Libya's money in just nine trades?

Goldman just gave Libya it's balance sheet dreck!

Memorial Day

Wall Street's new forex indicator if the dollar will fall

This morning you had news like this:
Oil was higher in Asian trade today as the US currency weakened against the euro, boosting investor appetite for dollar-priced commodities including crude, analysts said.

and this in the WSJ
MUMBAI (Dow Jones)--The Indian rupee rose against the U.S. dollar Friday, mirroring strength in major currencies against the greenback and helped by gains in the local equity market.

Dollar down--wait dollar up!

When the real indicator on the dollar on Wall Street is this:

It's hard for the dollar to fall when everyone's being a tight *ss!

Why Goldman lowered S&P target

Americas-Morning-Summary (1)

Goldman's oil call

Heat beat Bulls in OT

For the "Glass Man!"

And for the lowly Bulls fans, who had only ONE highlight in that game--I'll let you watch that while you sulk! Hah!

DSK's rape victim's kin "We can't be bought!"

Oh My!!!

A banker, who thinks his money can cover his sins, is finding that some people can't be bought!!

NYPost

"In our family, we are above material things," said Mamoudou, who is around 50.

"Even if you are a billionaire, we don't care. The most important thing for us is how you follow God's path."

David Rosenberg, of the bear's asylum, speaks on CNBC

And it appears he has taken some therapy.

He now says S&P could go to 1200.

Remember when he said ....

S&P 500?
S&P 800?
S&P 900?

I guess the wheels fell off of that prediction.

Or on February 18, 2010 when he said that a "test of S&P 912  was inevitable?"

Now S&P 1200 'is a good entry point!

So here's what that means.

You don't even see S&P 1300!!!

So why the walk through the sanitarium?

Because if you walk down the hallway....

You see the bears "three legged stool."

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The legs are following off the bear's stool

It's now patently obvious that Monday's downdraft was an orchestrated move by the bears to crack the market.

And it's now patently obvious, that we have already had the price and time correction in this bull market.

We corrected 5%; so that was the price correction.

And the time correction was one day.

The fundamentals of the economy are getting better, so we now have had the time correction, even though it was only one day, because the economy is healing that quickly.

And the correction that we had, that was manufactured by the bears, on the heels of the stress test pre-release by a white supremist, means that the desperation of the quants that are short, and those not invested are at a fever pitch---just look at who they had to use!

So the legs of the stool that supported the bears are now broken. And now the bulls will extract every penny from the bears hides who remain short.

After all, it's a milking stool!

The leg of a financial collapse of the financials is gone--do suicides happen at financial tops?

The leg of bearishness from Goldman Sachs is now broken.

The leg of the next depression is now destroyed.

And further down, you have the bears "stool check!"

As Advertised, once again, here, long ago!

Now that Roubini, Rosenberg and Whitney have finally been discredited after being wrong for well over two years!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Dandelion tea bags for the bears?

I thought I would help readers with the stage of denial that the bears are currently under, with a simple stool chart, that will go with my piece this morning on the bears stools with the legs falling off!
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/04/legs-are-following-off-bears-stool.html

It's even more appropriate today, since a black bear was sighted in Weston, South Florida. Unlike Wall Street, they couldn't find the bear. But he left tracks!
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/breaking-news/story/1011851.html

And like the Wall Street bears, their stool is quite similiar. It's full of nuts, and hard to pass. And as you can see from the chart above, the bears, in their public proclamations are still at Type 1; the stage of constipation! They're still full of themselves!

However, a "channel check" of the toilets around Wall Street, shows a markedly different chart pattern.

Behind closed doors, the bowls are splattered.

That would indicate that the bears, are really sh*tting their pants, while spraying the bowl.

While seated!

And that would make some sense. After all, at stage 6, stool is characterized by "fluffy" pieces. Isn't that the latest research from the bears?

Look at Nouriel Roubini's writings. How well was his latest work held together?

Roubini thought he was clever, intoning, while the world sees "green shoots" he sees "yellow weeds!"

How appropriate. The most common yellow weed is a dandelion, the traditional medication for constipation!

Instead of throwing tea bags over the White House fence, maybe somebody better send some dandelion tea bags to Wall Street!

Let's have a Wall Street tea party with David Rosenberg, Meredith Whitney and Nouriel Roubini as the invited guests!

Served on fine China

Goldman's Morning

Goldman earnings forecast:
2011-12 top down
$96 and $106

2011-2012 bottom up
$99 and $113

And today they finally decided to take their sell off (initiated on 10/1/10--Goldman's numerologists must of  missed the numbers on the Secret models) on Victoria's Secret and move to neutral since Limited Brands has moved 48% in their face! It's now "too sexy" to sell! Heck of a call! Hah!
GS 1 (4)

Pellicano's dossier on Arnold

The NY Post is now sourcing jailbird Anthony Pellicano as the "expert" on Arnold's affairs. Here is what they said:


Arnold "reportedly picks unattractive women to bed because they fawn all over his muscle-bound bod -- and are grateful for the attention in a way gorgeous gals never are."

So that's the dossier on Arnold?

On live television, there was this incident where Arnold appeared to come close to groping Denise Van Outen.

Maybe that picture of Denise Van Outen is a bit grainy for the NY Post--So I'll give them a better one.

Reportedly picks "unattractive women to bed?" Huh???

KISS' Gene Simmons: Obama "Has No F***ing Idea What The World Is Like"

JANE WELLS, CNBC: What do you think of President Obama’s suggestion that the borders be redrawn pre-67?

GENE SIMMONS, KISS: President Obama, I voted for an idea. What I didn’t realize what I was getting was an idealist. If you’ve never been to the moon, you can’t issue policy about the moon. You have no f—king idea what it’s like on the moon. For a president to be sitting in Washington, D.C., and saying, “Go back to your 67 borders in Israel,” how about you live there and try to defend an indefensible border nine miles wide? On one side you’ve got hundreds of millions of people who hate your guts, on the other side you’ve got the Mediterranean. Unless you control, in Israel, unless you control those Golan Heights, it’s an indefensible position.


It’s a nice idea, when you grow up you find out that life isn’t the way you imagined it, and President Obama means well. I think he’s actually a good guy. He has no f—king idea what the world is like because he doesn’t have to live there.

KISS' Gene Simmons: Obama "Has No F***ing Idea What The World Is Like"
Link to video

The damage from the tornado that ripped through Joplin, Missouri

The parking lot of St. John's Hospital in Joplin

Image: AP

A destroyed helicopter lies on its side at the Joplin Regional Medical Center

Image: AP

Emergency personnel walk through a neighborhood near the hospital

Image: AP

A man walks past destroyed vehicles at the Joplin Regional Medical Center

Image: AP

Emergency workers waiting on a medical team

Image: AP

Volunteer firefighters look through home wreckage where it was believed a pregnant woman was trapped

Image: AP

Residents help a woman who hid in her basement during the tornado

Image: AP

An emergency workers searches the wreckage of the Joplin Walmart

Image: AP

Hospital workers walk from the wreckage of the Joplin Regional Medical Center

Image: AP

Residents of Joplin on 26th St. near Maiden Lane

Image: AP

Residents begin digging through the rubble of their home after the tornado

Image: AP

Emergency workers waiting for a medical team after finding a body in a tornado damaged car

Image: AP

A man carries a young boy who was rescued after being trapped in his home

Image: AP

Volunteer firefighters from Oklahoma survey the wreckage of homes in Joplin

Image: AP

"It's like Armageddon."

Destroyed vehicles piled on top of each other at Joplin Regional Medical Center

Image: AP

A body is seen in the car as emergency teams wait for a medical crew

Image: AP

Workers wait for a medical team after finding a body in a tornado ravaged car

Image: AP

Joplin residents survey the damage in their neighborhood

Image: AP

The lingering clouds from the storm that caused the tornado

Image: AP

The OMG "pair trade!"

Check out these stoned dudes that almost get eaten by a shark!

Teenager wants a refund from her prom dress to pay for boyfriend's funeral

And Diane & Co. says no!

A New Jersey dress shop best known for its role on an Oxygen channel reality show is under fire after refusing to refund a high school sophomore after her boyfriend was killed in a car accident weeks before prom.

16-year-old Jackie Genovese told Fox News that after her boyfriend of two years, James, was killed coming home from a baseball team dinner, she tried to return her prom dress to Freehold's Diane and Co., which is featured on Oxygen's "Dress Coutoure".

"I just wanted the dress out of my house, I couldn't see it, I would just hysterically cry all the time," she said. "I just wanted to give the money to his family because they deserved it because they mean so much to me."



But the store refused to refund the $1200 dress and would only give her a store credit – even after her mom went in to speak to the owner.

In response, a mother of one of Jackie's friends set up a Facebook page boycotting the popular dress store – which now has more than 9,700 fans.

"Wonder if they ever heard the saying 'there is an exception to every rule.' This should have been the exception! One of the most exciting times in a girl's life is going to the senior prom with the guys she loves. Something very horrible happened, it's not that she just didn't want the dress anymore. Her heart's been broken and I am sad for her that she has to go through this now," one member of the page wrote.
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What the heck is wrong with the owners of that store, anyway?

I'll buy the dress for $1,200--sell it to me--and tell the store to go and screw themselves, and let the people of Jersey shop somewhere else!

Somethin' for the right wing

The Difference Between Sarah Palin, Allen West and Barack Obama, In Pictures

By Gary P Jackson

Pictures really are worth thousands of words:

Allen West hopped on his motorcycle for a charity event, the Celebration of Smiles Charity Ride 4 Kids, benefiting the Chris Evert Children’s Hospital. Photos by Cal Deal

Allen with former Miami Heat star Glen Rice

Barack Obama:

Oh yeah, and let’s not forget George W Bush, arguably one of the most physically fit Presidents ever, with “Mountain Bike One“: